In the West Bank, More Ideas Fast Forward to Startups

While Israel’s Tel Aviv has evolved into arguably the biggest tech hotspot outside of Silicon Valley, just a short drive away in Ramallah, the West Bank’s first startup accelerator is only now educating its second batch of entrepreneurs.

Fast Forward, which is supported by the Welfare Association and Leaders Organization, on Monday announced it would accelerate a second round of four startups, picked from 70 applicants. The accelerator program set up last year with a pilot of three small businesses from just five applications.

Each of the four new teams of entrepreneurs will receive $20,000 in seed funding, as well as mentorship and consultancy services to help bring their digital business to life. In return, Fast Forward, will take an 8% equity stake in each company.

This year’s class of startups are predominantly consumer-driven businesses that aim to meet a perceived need in the market. For example, Ustaz is an online tutoring portal that plans to connect students with vetted teachers on a range of subjects to help increase methods of education.

Meanwhile, iPush is a digital platform that allows independent musicians to distribute their music to fans via social networks, and is run by Mahmoud Jreri from Palestinian hip hop group DAM.

“The tech entrepreneurship community has been growing in an impressive way in the last couple of years,” Nedal Zahran, an advisor to Fast Forward, said in an interview. “We have witnessed huge improvements both on the quantity and quality of startup ideas being pitched to us.”

Another startup Sufrati, which means “my table” in Arabic, is a social network for sharing food ideas, pictures and recipes, while the final startup aims to help e-commerce merchants solve the widespread issue of cash on delivery in the Middle East.

Online use of credit cards is not very widespread across the region, so e-commerce websites usually deliver with logistics companies that have to take cash payment on delivery. FeeKash aims to act as an independent cash collector before a product is delivered.

“It’s hard to be funded here in Palestine without being accelerated,” explained Mohammad AbuQare, the founder of FadFid, a website that connects people with therapists online, and a graduate of Fast Forward’s first program.

Yet funding is not the only obstacle faced as a startup in the West Bank, according to entrepreneurs. Mr. Zahran, who recently set up Ezents.com, an event management and promotion system, describes living in “legal and institutional vacuum” where the laws, regulations and public bodies are not sophisticated enough to manage digital startups.

Palestine is also not integrated into the global banking system and travel to the Gulf region, Lebanon and Egypt is very difficult, making it almost impossible to serve the rest of the Arabic-speaking world and scale a digital business, entrepreneurs added.